Australian researchers say they've found a hidden link between gambling, and violence within families. They found that nearly half of the family members of a problem gambler had experienced violence in the previous 12 months. The Australian team says its study is the first in the world to examine what has until now been a hidden problem.

Transcript

ELEANOR HALL: Melbourne University researchers investigating links between gambling and family violence say they've been shocked by the some evidence that they've gathered.

They found that nearly half the family members of a problem gambler had experienced violence in the previous 12 months, and that some relatives are so frustrated by the problem that they take it out on children.

The Australian team says its study is the first in the world to examine what has until now been a hidden problem.

Tom Nightingale reports.

TOM NIGHTINGALE: Professor Alun Jackson says his research is the first to reveal the link between problem gambling and violence within families. But the University of Melbourne researcher says for a big problem, it's largely unknown.

ALUN JACKSON: It's not just about partners, it's now involving broader families, so it's bringing in parents, it's bringing in parents-in-law, it's bringing in siblings.

TOM NIGHTINGALE: The study questioned 120 people who sought help for a family member with a gambling problem. It found nearly half reported violence within their family in the previous 12 months.

Professor Jackson says the frustrations of a gambling relative drove one in five people to violence themselves - sometimes against the gambler, and other times, against children.

ALUN JACKSON: What it's really showing is that the impacts of the problematic gambling are not just on couples or on the nuclear family, but they're on the broader family network as well, and a lot of those people are I guess as an act of desperation turning to some level of violence to try and change the situation.

TOM NIGHTINGALE: So in some cases problem gamblers themselves are actually the victims of violence?

ALUN JACKSON: Absolutely, absolutely, and I think that they're often the victims of violence by extended family members who are, particularly parents, parents-in-law, who are stepping in to, you know, to try and protect their you know, their family member.

TOM NIGHTINGALE: As in they're trying to protect a child involved or something like that?

ALUN JACKSON: Exactly. For example, a problem gambling mother will be abused by her partner who's at the end of their tether, and then she will then displace that violence onto the children. So that the, we know that the children of problem gambling families are subjected to much higher rates of child abuse than the general community.

TOM NIGHTINGALE: Professor Jackson says the researchers doing interviews were often shocked at the harm caused.

ALUN JACKSON: People have in their mind that it's really only violence if it's physical violence, and what came home to us very strongly was how debilitating it is to live under the threat of violence day-in and day-out

TOM NIGHTINGALE: He says Australia's gambling help services are not asking the right questions, and failing to stop relatives hurting each other.

ALUN JACKSON: Nobody knew the extent of family violence in these problem gambling families until we asked, and typically it's not screened for .We've suggested that, you know, problem gambling services must screen, you know, for the presence of violence. Because there's no point trying to work on, you know, an individual's sort of problematic gambling behaviour without taking the whole family context into account.

TOM NIGHTINGALE: The study has been published in the Asian Journal of Gambling and Public Health, and it's part of a broader project in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.